Palestinians grieve over the death of relatives as they wait outside the morgue of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city, on July 21, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/MAHMUD HAMS)

A house in Sderot hit by a rocket fired from Gaza on July 21, 2014. (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The son of IDF Major Amotz Greenberg (res.), 45, seen at the grave of his father during the funeral at the military cemetery in Hod HaSharon on Sunday, July 20, 2014. Greenberg was killed by Hamas terrorists who tunneled into Israel and opened fire on his army vehicle on July 19. (Photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

An Israeli soldier cries at the funeral of Israeli soldier Sgt. Adar Bersano, a 20-year-old killed fighting a group of Hamas terrorists who infiltrated Israel through a tunnel from the center of the Gaza Strip, at his funeral in the town of Nahariya, on July 20, 2014. (photo credit: FLASH90)

Rioters throw projectiles at French riot police officers in Sarcelles, a suburb north of Paris, on July 20, 2014, after clashes following a demonstration denouncing Israel's military campaign in Gaza. (Photo credit: AFP/ PIERRE ANDRIEU

Palestinians launch fireworks during celebrations in the West bank city of Ramallah, late Sunday, July 20, 2014. (photo credit: AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

As day broke on Monday, the 14th day of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas gunmen infiltrated Israel, killing four soldiers and injuring several more before being pushed back. Overnight, three other soldiers were killed in battles, bringing the army’s death toll in the ground operation to 25. A day after a deadly battle in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya that left 13 soldiers and some 70 Palestinian dead, according to Gazan health officials, ceasefire efforts in Qatar and Egypt ramped up, with visits by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Ban Ki-moon to the region planned to push for a stop in fighting.

Kerry heads in, as Israel names its dead

It begins with news that Secretary of State John Kerry is heading this way on a ceasefire mission, and with the IDF firmly denying Hamas claims to have kidnapped an Israeli soldier.

Thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed Sunday, in heavy fighting that is still ongoing in Gaza’s Shejaiya neighborhood, a Hamas stronghold close enough to the border to be the source of numerous Hamas tunnels, the Israeli army says, and the source of some 150 rockets fired at Israel these past two weeks. Palestinian officials say 60 Palestinians have died in the fighting there.

Earlier Sunday, the IDF confirmed the deaths of two other soldiers on Saturday, bringing the toll of the IDF dead to 18. Sending condolences to the families, Netanyahu said all of Israel felt their pain, and that they died in the “most just cause of all,” defending their very home.

We’ll keep you updated as Israel’s battle with Hamas continues through the day.

Sirens heard in southern Israel

More on that Kerry trip

The White House said Kerry will seek “an immediate cessation of hostilities based on a return to the November 2012 ceasefire agreement,” and stressed the need to protect civilian life both “in Gaza and in Israel.”

Channel 2 analyst Ehud Ya’ari said shortly after the announcement of Kerry’s impending return to the Middle East that, as far as Israel is concerned, the secretary of state’s ceasefire trip is premature “and bad for Israel,” and that he should have left it to the Egyptians to lead the ceasefire effort. Ya’ari said many people, “including senior American officials,” tried to convey this to Kerry.

This marks the continuing trend of the Obama Administration “to give credit” to the Muslim Brotherhood, in this case Hamas, Ya’ari said, except that now it’s graver, because “we’re in a war.”

UN chief said to push new ceasefire initiative

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is spearheading a new ceasefire bid along with the European Union, Arab sources report, based on the Egyptian truce proposal which was refused last week by Hamas.

The new initiative will reportedly include guarantees for the opening of the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in the future in cooperation with Palestinian Authority security forces, as well as a significant easing of restrictions on the transfer of goods from Israel to Gaza.

Ban met on Sunday with PA President Mahmoud Abbas as well as the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Tomorrow he will meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and US Secretary of State John Kerry.

UN Security Council to meet on Gaza in coming hours

The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting in the coming hours on the situation in Gaza, where Gaza officials say the Palestinian death toll passed 100 in a single day.

Diplomats say the meeting was requested by council member Jordan, following a call by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas said earlier that “what the occupation forces did today in Shejaiya is a crime against humanity,” referring to an hours-long Israeli assault near Gaza City that Gaza sources say has claimed 62 Palestinian lives and wounded another 250.

“Those who committed it will not go unpunished,” Abbas added.

The Israeli army says 13 soldiers were killed in Gaza fighting on Sunday.

Bodies of 11 more Palestinians killed in Shejaiya are found

Gaza emergency services find the bodies of 11 Palestinians killed in Shejaiya between Gaza City and the Israeli border, spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra says.

The latest fatalities raise the toll of the Palestinians killed Sunday in Shejaiya to 73, hiking the overall toll of Gazans killed since the start of the Israeli military campaign on July 8 to 449. The numbers are based on reports by Palestinian officials in Gaza.

UN chief calls Israeli actions in Shejaiya ‘atrocious’

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urges Israel to “exercise maximum restraint” and spare civilian lives in its campaign in Gaza, where the reported Palestinian death toll on Sunday alone passed 100.

He also condemns the “atrocious action” of Israel in Shejaiya, near Gaza City, where a blistering assault that started at dawn killed 62 people and wounded at least 250.

The United Nations chief makes his remarks in Doha, Qatar at the start of a regional trip aimed at pushing for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

“While I was en route to Doha, dozens more civilians, including children had been killed in Israeli military strikes in Shejaiya. I condemn this atrocious action,” he tells a news conference.

“Israel must exercise maximum restraint and do far more to protect civilians,” he says, adding that it also “must respect the humanitarian law” as it presses ahead with a deadly offensive that began on July 8.

“Too many innocent people are dying…(and) living in constant fear” in the narrow coastal strip controlled by Hamas, he says.

“Gaza is an open wound. We must stop the bleeding now,” says Ban, adding that beyond a ceasefire the “root causes of the conflict” must be addressed.

UN Security Council now meeting on Gaza

The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting at this time on the worsening situation in Gaza.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud tweets that the meeting is being held at the request of council member Jordan.

A Jordan-drafted resolution obtained by The Associated Press expresses “grave concern” at the high number of civilians killed in Gaza, including children, and it calls for an immediate cease-fire, “including the withdrawal of Israeli occupying forces from the Gaza Strip.”

Palestinians to seek ‘justice’ against Israel — UN envoy

The Palestinian Authority’s representative to the UN says Palestinians will take Israel to task over its actions in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya on Sunday, in which over 70 Palestinians were said to have been killed, many of them civilians. 13 Israeli soldiers were also killed in the fighting.

“We will leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of justice,” Ynet quoted Riyad Mansour as saying in a press conference at UN headquarters in New York.

Asked if the PA was considering appealing to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Mansour said that option was under consideration.

Mansour added that the only way to ensure a lasting peace in Gaza was to remove the siege on the coastal territory and eliminate restrictions on its residents.

Slain soldiers’ families hear the news on Whatsapp

Hours before the IDF notified the families of the 13 soldiers killed in Gaza early Sunday that their relatives had been slain, rumors of the killings spread on the Whatsapp messaging app, which is how two of the bereaved families first heard of their loved one’s deaths.

A relative of one of the victims tells Ynet that the victim’s brother, also an IDF soldier, was stationed outside Gaza when numerous people confronted him with the rumor that his brother had been killed. Only later did the army inform him officially and send him home, the report says.

“The circulation of these rumors is cruel, outrageous, and there must be an investigation into who’s spreading it,” he says.

Similarly, a second family received the news from WhatsApp, and was only formally notified hours later. One of the soldier’s best friends heard the tragic news via a text message as well, Channel 2 reports.

In other cases, the names of the soldiers circulated on WhatsApp turned out to be false, causing needless worry to various families.

One IDF soldier was said to be killed in Gaza, and his family plunged into mourning before learning that he was still alive, although he had been hospitalized in serious condition.

In other cases, Channel 2 reports, friends showed up at the doorstep of the parents of a Golani soldier, announcing that their son had been killed and comforting them ahead of receiving the dreaded IDF call, but the call never came, as the rumors turned out to be unsubstantiated.

Rocket hits house in Shaar HaNegev

Canada reiterates support for Gaza op

As international pressure on Israel mounts to end Operation Protective Edge, Canada reiterates its full backing for the campaign.

“Canada condemns in the strongest terms Hamas’s shameful decision to continue its cowardly and indiscriminate violence that has today cost the lives of 13 soldiers. Yet another breach of a ceasefire by Hamas in Shejaiya confirms that it has no interest in peace,” Foreign Minister John Baird says in a statement.

“Hamas’s continued aggression, combined with cowardly tactics that endanger civilians, has resulted in the tragic deaths of approximately another 87 Palestinians. Innocent civilians living in Gaza deserve far better than the reckless actions of this terrorist organization.”

Ottawa continues to believe that Egypt is the best-placed country in the region to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Baird says.

Injured troops want op to ‘go all the way’

Members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee knew how difficult the sort of fighting Israeli troops would encounter in Gaza was, and therefore were not surprised to learn that 13 soldiers were killed Sunday in the Shejaiya neighborhood, MK Ze’ev Elkin says.

“This is war of no-choice to save Israeli lives,” he says at a meeting of the committee, which he heads. “It is possible that we will be required to continue paying high prices, but this is a war for our home.”

Elkin visited injured soldiers in the hospital yesterday and says they all asked to pass on the message that they wish that Operation Protective Edge not be concluded “without going all the way,” he says.

No plan to reoccupy Gaza, IDF says

IDF Spokesman Moti Almoz stresses that the purpose of the operation in Gaza is to destroy the Hamas tunnels that are being used to launch attack on Israelis, and that reoccupation of the Strip is not on the table, Ynet reports.

French online forums overflow with hate comments

Operation Protective Edge has let loose an unprecedented wave of hate on media websites and social networks in France that moderators say they are struggling to contain.

As soon as you talk about Israel, it crystallizes all passions, with up to 20,000 or 30,000 comments sometimes after an article, of which we will only let five to 10 percent through,” says David Corchia, head of Concileo, a firm of moderators that counts the dailies Le Figaro and Liberation as clients.

Helped by software that automatically reports suspect keywords, online moderators can filter comments in accordance with special legal requirements in France as well as client requests. Those laws ban racist, anti-Semitic or discriminatory messages among others, as well as calls for violence.

The moderators have little time to decide whether to let a remark through, and generally block 25 to 40 percent of comments.

But on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the rejection rate can reach 95 percent.

“There are three times as many comments than normal, all linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” says Jeremie Mani, head of Netino, which looks after the websites of the Le Monde daily, Europe 1 radio and major French television channels.

Netino’s 250 moderators, most of them based in Madagascar, deal with tens of millions of comments every month.

“We see racist or anti-Semitic messages, very violent, that also take aim at politicians and the media, sometimes by giving journalists’ contact details,” Mani said.

“This sickening content is peculiar to this conflict. The war in Syria does not trigger these kinds of comments.

“On the pro-Palestinian side, identical messages are posted on dozens of sites. On the pro-Israeli side, there are fewer messages but they are better organised,” he says.

“But it’s a dialogue of the deaf. Neutral netizens… are really annoyed to see their space for dialogue monopolized by this issue.”

The vitriolic messages about the conflict come up not only after content about the conflict itself — but can be found under any subject.

“On an article about the Tour de France, after four comments it’s about Gaza,” says Mani.

“On one story about salmon fishing, I saw a comment saying: ‘Stop talking about this, the problem is there are too many Jews’.

More details on the tunnel infiltrations

A clearer picture of the infiltration attempts emerges.

In open ground near Erez five terrorists come out of a tunnel shortly after six in the morning. They surface near the security fence and only a few hundred yards from the nearest community. An IAF aircraft intercepts them, killing all five, with no Israelis wounded.

“My understanding is that the Shin Bet provided an alert,” says Lt. Col. Peter Lerner. The gunmen were then spotted by surveillance soldiers and aircraft were quickly summoned to the area, he says.

Near Kibbutz Nir Am, a second group of terrorists surface on the Israeli side of the border.

It is not clear if they emerge from a different tunnel or a branch of the one that served the other squad, nor is the number of gunmen confirmed. The sizable squad is able to surprise a passing army jeep, ambushing it with an anti-tank missile and inflicting Israeli casualties. But with the help of Nahal troops the force is able to kill the operatives and thwart an infiltration to civilian areas or an abduction attempt.

IDF kills 10 terrorists in Gaza

In intense fighting on Sunday night and Monday morning in the Hamas stronghold of Shajaiya, a neighborhood of Gaza City, forces from the Egoz unit engage and kill 10 Hamas operatives, including one who detonates a suicide vest.

There are conflicting reports about the sex of the suicide bomber.

In depicting the intensity of the battles in Shajaiya, where dozens of Palestinians were killed along with 13 soldiers on Sunday, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner says that the combat is “reminiscent of Black Hawk Down,” the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.

“When you head for the synagogue, when you burn a corner shop because it is Jewish-owned, you are committing an anti-Semitic act,” Bernard Cazeneuve tells reporters outside the Sarcelles synagogue.

Protesters clash with riot police in Sarcelles, a suburb north of Paris, on July 20, 2014, during a demonstration to denounce Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and show their support for the Palestinian people. (photo credit: AFP/Omar Bouyacoub)

In the Paris suburb sometimes nicknamed “little Jerusalem” for its large community of Sephardic Jews, the rally on Sunday descended into chaos when dozens of youth — some masked — set fire to bins and lit firecrackers and smoke bombs.

Eighteen people were arrested after looters wrecked shops, including a kosher foodstore and a funeral home as protesters shouted: “Fuck Israel!”

“We have never seen such an outpouring of hatred and violence in Sarcelles,” says the mayor Francois Pupponi. “This morning people are stunned, and the Jewish community is afraid.”

Sirens in Tel Aviv, Rishon Lezion, Shfela region

Sirens in Beit Shemesh, Lod

Iron Dome downs 4 rockets over Tel Aviv, Ashdod

Israeli Arabs go on strike against Gaza op

The Israeli-Arab community launches a nationwide strike and day of mourning, and a large-scale demonstration in Nazareth is scheduled for this afternoon at 4 p.m. against Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman calls on citizens to boycott those Israeli-Arab businesses participating in this general strike against the ongoing Israeli ground offensive.

Hezbollah backs Hamas’s ‘rightful demands’

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on the phone Sunday night, and reassures him that “Hezbollah and the Lebanese resistance will stand by the Palestinian people’s uprising and resistance in our heart, willpower, hope and destiny,” according to the Daily Star.

The Hezbollah leader backs the terror organization’s “rightful demands to end the current battle.”

Mashaal replies that Hamas “will remain steadfast and make a second victory in July, God willing,” in an apparent reference to the start of the 2006 Second Lebanon War fought by Hezbollah against Israel.

Sirens in Ashdod, Hof Ashkelon region

Destruction of tunnels exceeds expectations — PM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the Israel Defense Forces “advance in the field as planned” and that Operation Protective Edge is going to continue and be expanded until its objective is met: restoring quiet to Israeli citizens for a long time.

“The achievements in the fighting on the ground are significant,” Netanyahu says during security consultations in the south attended by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Southern Command head Sami Turgeman.

“I’m impressed with the activity to destroy tunnels, they achieve results beyond what we anticipated,” the prime minister says. Not commenting directly on the reported casualties IDF troops incurred this morning, he merely says a military campaign is “a complex thing” that includes painful moments.

“I am sure that together, with joined forces, we will reach the goal.”

Iron Dome intercepts 3 rockets over Hof Ashkelon

Sirens in Ashkelon

Peres consoles families of slain troops

President Shimon Peres meets with bereaved families of the slain IDF soldiers in their homes.

In the Greenberg household, the president turns to the young son the late Amotz Greenberg, 45, and praises his eulogy for his father.

“I saw and heard you yesterday at your father’s funeral,” he tells 12-year-old Uri. “From your throat, your father spoke — with the same enthusiasm, love, and dedication — these are the values that hold the state of Israel together. As a president I have the authority to speak on behalf of the nation and to tell you children that the entire nation salutes your father and thanks him for risking his life to save the people.”

President Shimon Peres at the home of slain IDF soldier Amotz Greenberg (photo credit: Courtesy)

Visiting the family of Bnaya Rubel, 20, of Holon, the slain soldier’s parents say: “Bnaya in the Bible was one of King David’s heroes. We wanted him to be a hero, but not this way.”

David Barak, the father of Eitan Barak, the first IDF casualty, describes his son as someone who “connected with everyone, loved everyone. He was modest and sensitive.”

“I’ve always wanted to meet you, Mr. President, but I never dreamed it would be in this situation,” he adds.

After battle, Hebrew papers show tunnel vision

A day after the fiercest fight of Operation Protective Edge, and perhaps of all of Israel’s battles with Gaza over the last decade — which left 13 Israeli soldiers from the Golani Brigade dead and dozens more wounded, not to mention the scores of Palestinians killed and injured — Israel’s three major dailies wear their true faces on their front pages in wondering where to go from here.

Looking at the three side by side reveals a microcosm of the rainbow of Israeli thought, from the right-wing Israel Hayom to the populist Yedioth Ahronoth to left-wing Haaretz.

Michael Oren speaks out against Kerry visit

Michael Oren, who until recently served as Israel’s ambassador to the US, says Kerry is coming to the region despite not being invited.

In outspoken comments to Channel 2, Oren cites Kerry’s “long history” of unsuccessful diplomacy in the region, the Obama administration’s tense relations with Egypt, and the “tension” in ties between the Obama administration and Israel.

He says Kerry and the Obama administration have close ties with Qatar and Turkey, “who are not on the best terms with Egypt right now.”

Oren stresses that Kerry, as evidenced by his on-camera slip yesterday, was “not invited” to come out here. He decided that that’s what he wanted to do.

Oren’s comments follow remarks yesterday by Channel 2’s veteran Arab affairs analyst Ehud Ya’ari, who said flatly that Kerry’s trip was “bad for Israel” and that the US should be leaving it to Egypt to handle ceasefire efforts.

Kuwait appeals to UN chief to end Israeli ‘aggression’

Kuwait calls on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday to urge the international community to put an end to the Israeli “aggression” in Gaza which has claimed over 500 lives in a determined bid to halt rocket fire from the Strip and attempted tunnel infiltrations into Israel’s south.

The call comes in a meeting between Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah and Ban, who arrives in Kuwait in the second leg of a regional tour aimed at pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The UN chief is separately received by Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the official KUNA news agency reports.

The foreign minister “renewed Kuwait’s support for the Palestinian people and condemned all Israeli acts of aggression,” KUNA says following the meeting.

“He called on the UN Secretary General to urge the international community to shoulder responsibility to put an end to this dangerous aggression,” it says.

The foreign minister also reiterates Kuwait’s support for the Egyptian truce proposal, which was rejected by Hamas for failing to meet its conditions.

Old City shops shut by strike against Gaza op

Stores in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City are shuttered Monday afternoon as part of the Israeli-Arab community’s nationwide strike and day of mourning against Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip.

A large-scale demonstration in Nazareth is scheduled for this afternoon at 4 p.m.

Shops in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City are shuttered as part of a general strike protesting Operation Protective Edge in Gaza (photo credit: Sarah Tuttle-Singer/Times of Israel)

More bodies found in Gaza rubble, Hamas says

The death toll in Gaza rises to 509 on Monday following the bloodiest day in six years in the Palestinian enclave where Israel is pressing its military operation against Hamas rocket fire and attack tunnels.

According to figures released by Hamas emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra, some 15 people are killed in several strikes across Gaza on Monday and 45 bodies are pulled from the rubble in areas hit by heavy fighting a day earlier.

Separately, the Israeli army says it killed more than 10 attackers who infiltrated southern Israel through two cross-border tunnels.

Fighters killed inside Israel are not included in Qudra’s Gaza toll.

Among those killed on Monday are a family of nine who died in an Israeli strike on a house in the southern city of Rafah, he says. Seven of the victims are children.

Images of destruction have come out the Shejaiya neighborhood after heavy fighting there (Screen capture: Reuters)

Four more people are killed in various strikes to the south and east of Gaza City, while another dies in the northern town of Beit Hanun. There is also one other casualty in Rafah, he says.

Of the 45 bodies recovered on Monday, 11 are from Shejaiya, hiking the death toll from a blistering Sunday attack to 72 dead, he says.

Qudra has said 80 percent of the victims in Shejaiya were women, children and elderly people, with around 400 people wounded. Israel urged Shejaiya residents to evacuate the area prior to its strike, but most ignored the warning.

Another 23 of the bodies are pulled from a three-story house belonging to the Abu Jamaa family in the southern city of Khan Yunis which was hit on Sunday, raising the overall death toll from a single strike to 28, Qudra says.

In a separate development, the Israeli army says it had killed “more than 10” militants early Monday who had infiltrated southern Israel through two cross-border tunnels.

So far, Palestinian figures show 509 Gazans have been killed and more than 3,150 wounded since the start of the Israeli campaign to stamp out cross-border rocket fire on July 8.

On the Israeli side, 20 people have died, including two civilians killed by rocket fire and 18 soldiers who were killed since the start of a ground operation late on July 17.

Army figures say 53 soldiers were injured on Sunday alone, five of them severely and 13 moderately, while military radio put the overall injury toll at more than 90 soldiers since the ground assault began.

Since the start of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge on July 8 in response to rocket fire from Gaza, Palestinian militants have fired 1,465 mortars and rockets that hit Israel, with the Iron Dome air defense system intercepting another 387, the army said.

Approximately 40 struck Israel on Monday, one of them in the greater Tel Aviv area, while another 11 were shot down, the army said.

Gazans say hospital hit by shells

A Gazan health official and a doctor report Israeli tank shells have struck a hospital in central Gaza. The health official says the shells killed at least four people and wounded 60, including 30 medical staff.

The Israeli military says it is looking into the report.

Health official Ashraf al-Qidra says 12 shells hit the Al Aqsa hospital in the town of Deir el-Balah. He says the shells landed in the administration building, the intensive care unit and the surgery department.

Footage on Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV station shows wounded being moved on gurneys into the emergency department.

A doctor at the hospital, Fayez Zidane, tells the station that shells hit the third and fourth floor as well as the reception area.

“There is still shelling against the hospital,” he says. He says he found bits of a rocket, presumably from one of the projectiles.

Israeli media disputes hospital attack claim

We’re proud of the army, Netanyahu says

During a visit to southern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz address the cameras about the current situation in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu: We are prepared to do whatever is necessary in Gaza, and more, to protect the people of Israel. “We are proud of the army,” he says, and of the motivation of those who have taken the place of soldiers who have fallen.

Ya’alon: To our sorrow, soldiers and commanders have fallen…. We’ll continue to work in the coming days to counter this [Hamas] threat.

Gantz: The Southern Command and the rest of the army are making progress hour by hour. There are sometimes casualties. Every colleague of those who fell wants us to carry on.

The IDF says that over 82 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel on Monday, of which 14 were successfully intercepted by Iron Dome. Since the commencement of Operation Protective Edge, around 1,930 have been fired at Israel, and 387 intercepted.

The IDF says it’s struck around 2,800 terror targets in the Gaza Strip in the two-week-long operation against Hamas, destroyed 18 tunnels and found 45 others. Since ground troops entered the Gaza Strip Thursday night, the Israeli military has hit over 587 Hamas targets and killed 150 terror operatives, Channel 2 reports.

Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed and 92 are reported injured.

According to Hamas’s Health Ministry, Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip has left at least 509 dead and 3,150 injured. According to UNRWA, the United Nation’s refugee agency for Palestinians, at least 83,000 Gazans are taking refuge in the organization’s schools.

Maccabi Haifa fans: Don’t let lone soldier be buried alone

A Maccabi Haifa fan page on Facebook calls on its followers to do “a big mitzva,” or good deed, and attend the funeral of fallen American-Israeli soldier Nissim Sean Carmeli in Haifa on Monday.

Carmeli, a Texas native who moved to Israel, was reportedly a fan of the team. He was among 13 Golani Brigade soldiers killed in combat on Sunday morning in the Gaza Strip.

“Sean Carmeli,” reads the post, “was a lone soldier and we don’t want his funeral to be empty.” The post informs Facebook users that Carmeli will be laid to rest at 11 p.m. at the military cemetery in Haifa’s Neve David neighborhood and invites people “to come give final honors to a hero who was killed so that we can live.

“That’s the least we can do for him and for our people,” the Maccabi Haifa post says.

As of the time of this post, nearly 20,000 people had liked the Maccabi Haifa page’s comment and it had been shared over 7,000 times.

Roads closed in south for ‘security incident’

Police have closed roads near the Gaza Strip because of an unspecified “security incident.”

Routes 232 and 34, both of which run along Gaza, are closed for the length of the Strip.

Over the last several days, there have been a number of infiltration attempts by Gazan terrorists in the area, as well as several scares that turn out to be false alarms, with police closing roads in the area.

Obama voices ‘serious concerns’ about rising Gaza death toll

US President Barack Obama says Washington has “serious concerns” about the rising death toll among the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“We have serious concerns about rising number of Palestinian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives,” the president says, largely reiterating comments made to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone conversation a day before. “We need a ceasefire.”

Obama: “We have serious concerns about rising number of Palestinian deaths & the loss of israeli lives ..we need a ceasefire”

More sirens in central Israel, Tel Aviv area

New ceasefire proposal floated in Cairo

Head of Palestinian intelligence Majed Faraj turns up unexpectedly in Cairo just after the end of a meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal in Doha, Qatar.

According to the al-Mayadeen news station, Faraj brings with him to Cairo a draft for a ceasefire that is acceptable to Hamas. The deal is based on the proposal by UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon for a long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire along with guarantees for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza.

Ban’s proposal is also based on the Egyptian mediation for a ceasefire — which first calls for an end to the fighting and afterwards consideration of further steps. According to the agreement between Mashaal and senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian national unity government will be the one to guarantee the removal of the blockade on Gaza together with the US government.

According to reports from Reuters, Egypt agrees to make changes to its ceasefire proposal to meet demands from Hamas.

Among other things it is agreed that in the future the opening of the Rafah crossing is to be reviewed, the wages of officials will be transferred, and there will be an easing on the transfer of goods from Israel to the Gaza Strip. According to the plan, Abbas, Kerry, and Ban are to give a press conference tomorrow in Cairo and announce the ceasefire.

Two rockets intercepted over central Israel

Cameron defends Israel’s right to self-defense, urges restraint

British Prime Minister David Cameron says he continues to support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas missiles, but expresses “grave concern” over the “very disturbing” number of civilian casualties, calling on Israel to exercise restraint.

“This crisis was triggered by Hamas raining hundreds of rockets on Israeli cities, indiscriminately targeting civilians in contravention of all humanitarian law and norms,” Cameron says in the House of Commons. “This unprecedented barrage continues to this moment, with Hamas rejecting all proposals for a ceasefire.”

Hamas needs to enter serious negotiations to end this crisis, Cameron says, urging the group to “to engage with” the Egyptian ceasefire proposal, which it had previously rejected.

Cameron says that he has been clear throughout Operation Protective Edge that Israel has the right to defend itself. “Those criticizing Israel’s response must ask themselves how they would expect their own government to react if hundreds of rockets were raining down on British cities today,” he says. However, Cameron says that he shares the “grave concern” many in the international community have about the “heavy toll” of civilian casualties. “The figures are very disturbing,” he says.

Recalling his phone calls with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday evening, he says he reiterated London’s recognition of Israel’s right to take “proportionate action” to defend itself, and repeated its condemnation of Hamas’s refusal to end their rocket fire, despite international efforts to broker a ceasefire.

“But I urged him to do everything to avoid civilian casualties, to exercise restraint and to help find ways to bring this situation to an end,” Cameron says.

After the situation calms down, London wishes to see the Palestinian Authority back in Gaza, he says.

Slain Hamas gunmen wore IDF uniforms

The 10 Hamas fighters killed in a shootout with the IDF this morning after emerging from a tunnel were disguised in full Israeli military gear, down to the requisite rubber bands around the cuffs of their trousers, Ynet reports.

The killed Hamas fighters wore IDF-issue vests, boots, helmets, as well as camouflage nets similar to those used by the Israeli military.

Netanyahu says Hamas is Palestinians’ foe

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his media blitz on foreign television channels, giving interviews to Sky News Arabic, Fox News and NBC’s Nightly News. While he has held two short press conferences since Operation Protective Edge started, he has not given any interviews to Israeli media outlets.

“Hamas is the enemy of the Palestinians — it takes the money designated for the residents of Gaza and instead of building them kindergartens, they dig tunnels that are supposed to explode in [Israeli] kindergartens,” he tells Sky News. “Hamas hides missiles in hospitals, but prohibits the residents of Gaza from coming to the hospital we opened for them.”

Israel accepted several offers of ceasefires, but Hamas rejected and violated them, the prime minister adds. “Hamas is responsible for any damage done to the residents of Gaza.”

Ex-security adviser explains why we didn’t hit tunnels last year

Yaakov Amidror, Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, responds to criticism of the government’s failure to tackle the attack tunnels in Gaza earlier.

“We could have attacked them [the tunnels] a year ago, but the price would have been missiles on Tel Aviv.”

There would have been less understanding inside Israel and internationally for such an operation, he tells Channel 2. The IDF had the intelligence on the tunnels a year ago. Accepting the Egyptian ceasefire offer last Tuesday gave Israel the time and international forbearance necessary for this operation.

Kerry heading to Israel tonight

Seven IDF soldiers killed since last night

Four of the seven soldiers were killed overnight in the early-morning ambush carried out by Hamas near the Gaza Strip, when an antitank missile hit their jeep near Kibbutz Nir Am. Then other IDF troops killed 10 Hamas gunmen.

The three others were killed in Shejaiya, one of them possibly by IDF forces in error.

IDF names one of seven fallen soldiers

Some of 13 soldiers killed Sunday not yet ID’d

Some of the bodies of the seven IDF soldiers killed when an APC went over a land mine in Shejaiya early Sunday morning have still not been identified, military sources said. That’s why not all the names of the 13 soldiers killed have been released.

IDF says antitank missiles stored next to shelled hospital

The IDF says in a statement that initial investigations of reports of tank shells hitting a Gaza hospital found “that a cache of antitank missiles was stored in the immediate vicinity of the al-Aqsa Hospital.”

“This cache was successfully targeted by IDF forces,” the spokesperson says in a statement. “Civilian casualties are a tragic inevitability of the brutal and systematic exploitation of homes, hospitals and mosques in Gaza. While the IDF takes every possible measure to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas and its deliberate tactic of embedding terrorist activities within the urban environment is ultimately responsible.”

Earlier in the day, a Gazan health official and a doctor reported that Israeli tank shells struck a hospital in central Gaza. The health official said the shells killed at least four people and wounded 60, including 30 medical staff.

Health official Ashraf al-Kidra said 12 shells hit the al-Aqsa Hospital in the town of Deir el-Balah. He said the shells landed in the administration building, the intensive care unit and the surgery department.

One IDF soldier killed by friendly fire

One of the seven soldiers killed in Gaza in the past day died by friendly fire, and two were killed in Shejaiya when an antitank missile was fired into the building in which they took cover at around 4:30 a.m.

The other four died in a Hamas ambush on IDF troops near Kibbutz Nir Am shortly afterwards. The Hamas gunmen fired an antitank missile at the jeep they were riding in and all four were killed.

The names of six of the seven fatalities haven’t yet been released. Yuval Dagan, the one named fatality, was laid to rest in Kfar Saba Monday night.

Liberman said to call for Mashaal’s assassination in Qatar

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman says Israel should take the fight against Hamas to Qatar, both in working to ban the emirate’s news channel, al-Jazeera, in Israel, and by assassinating Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, who resides there.

According to Channel 2’s Udi Segal, Liberman said in closed-door meetings that Israel should bump off Mashaal on Qatari soil in the same way that the US assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

FM Lieberman say in indoor meetings that Israel should kill haled mashal even on Qatari soil

Liberman said in a meeting earlier today with the visiting Rwandan foreign minister that “Qatar is also a central figure in the conflict we’re waging now against Hamas in Gaza, as among other things it finances Hamas and gives asylum to Khaled Mashaal.”

“The al-Jazeera network, which is also of course financed by Qatar, is the central pillar of Hamas’s media relations and propaganda,” Liberman says. “We already began examining the activities and standing of al-Jazeera with the intention of not allowing it to operate in Israel anymore.”

Airstrike reportedly causes collapse of Gaza building, kills 11

Gaza news reports say an Israeli airstrike caused the collapse of four floors of a residential building in Gaza City. Eleven people are reported killed in the airstrike, including at least five children.

German Jews decry anti-Semitic ‘explosion’ in Gaza demos

Germany’s Jewish community has condemned an “explosion of evil and violent hatred of Jews” at a recent string of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the country.

Protesters waving Palestinian flags and signs of late leader Yasser Arafat have in recent days openly shouted angry anti-Semitic slogans at rallies against Israel’s Gaza offensive, according to German media.

Exclaiming “Allahu akbar” (God is great), crowds in Berlin have reportedly yelled “Death to Israel” and chanted “Zionists are fascists, killing children and civilians.”

An anti-Israel rally in Berlin’s Adenauerplatz on Friday July 18, 2014 (Micki Weinberg/The Times of Israel)

A Berlin imam has openly prayed for the annihilation of Zionist Jews, asking Allah to “kill them to the very last one,” according to a video published online by Israel’s Haaretz daily.

“We are currently experiencing in this country an explosion of evil and violent hatred of Jews, which shocks and dismays all of us,” says Dieter Graumann, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, in a statement.

“We would never in our lives have thought it possible anymore that anti-Semitic views of the nastiest and most primitive kind can be chanted on German streets.”

He demands “clear and loud condemnations from politicians, the media and civil society” against the hatred in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.

“Jews are once again openly threatened in Germany and sometimes attacked, synagogues are being defaced and declared as targets,” he says.

Heavy fighting in Gaza Strip

Gazan death toll up to 572

The death toll in Gaza has risen to 572, Gaza’s health ministry says.

Gaza emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra says air strikes and shelling killed 55 people across the enclave on Monday, and another 68 bodies were pulled from the rubble in areas hit by heavy fighting a day earlier.

The army also says its troops killed “more than 10 terrorists” who had infiltrated southern Israel through two tunnels, sparking a firefight that reportedly wounded several soldiers.

Terrorists killed inside Israel are not included in Kidra’s Gaza toll.

The latest deaths included six people killed in two artillery strikes, three of whom died in the southern city of Rafah and another three in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Of the 55 people killed on Monday, around one-third of them were children, Kidra said.

Seven children were among nine dead in an air raid on a house in Rafah, and another four children were killed in another strike on a house in Gaza City that killed nine people.

A nighttime airstrike on a residential tower block in Gaza City killed 11 people, including five children, Kidra said, and a simultaneous strike in the central Strip killed another.

UN agency says refugees in Gaza spike to over 100k

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says that the number of people seeking refuge with it in Gaza has soared to more than 100,000, two weeks into an Israeli offensive on the coastal enclave.

“This is a watershed moment for UNRWA, now that the number of people seeking refuge with us is more than double the figure we saw in the 2009 Gaza conflict,” the agency’s spokesman Christopher Gunness says in a statement.

Sirens in Beersheba

Cairo might be flexible in its Gaza truce initiative, Egyptian officials tell Reuters. An Israeli official in Washington tells the news agency that he wanted US Secretary of State John Kerry to get to Egypt and apply pressure on Hamas.

Kerry landed in Egypt in the past hour.

“The secretary has to try to strengthen the Egyptian proposal,” the Israeli official is quoted as saying. “I think Egypt has a considerable amount of leverage with Hamas, because they are the ones that have the choke hold” on the Gaza economy.

‘Long-term humanitarian ceasefire’ in the works, says Hamas

Reports swirling about the media this evening, attributable to Hamas, indicate that international efforts to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas may yield a “long-term humanitarian ceasefire” in the coming hours.

PA, Egypt representatives discuss changes to ceasefire proposal

In the past few hours in Cairo, representatives of the Palestinian Authority headed by intel chief Majed Faraj and Egyptian representatives have met to discuss amendments to the Egyptian ceasefire proposal.

Faraj, who was present at the meeting in Qatar between Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, left Doha shortly thereafter in haste for Cairo.

According to various Palestinian sources, Mashaal agreed to the Egyptian proposal of an immediate ceasefire but demanded the inclusion of various changes, foremost of which is a call to remove the blockade of Gaza. Mashaal even demanded guarantees for the removal of the blockade not just from Egypt, but from the PA and the United States, but didn’t insist on inclusion of Hamas’s other demands for the past two weeks, namely the opening of the Rafah Border Crossing with Egypt, freedom for prisoners released in the Shalit deal who were recently taken back into Israeli custody, establishment of an international port and others.

If this version of the deal is accepted, it means that Hamas withdrew its demand for a ceasefire on its terms.

Until now no official Hamas position has been expressed on the issue, but sources in the PA claim that the organization agrees to the version agreed upon by Mashaal and Abbas.

Abbas is expected to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon tomorrow in Cairo, and an announcement of a long-term humanitarian truce along these lines is planned.

UAE pledges $41 million for Gaza reconstruction

The United Arab Emirates says it will offer nearly &dollar;41 million in aid for the reconstruction of Gaza homes hit by Israel’s military offensive against rocket-firing terrorists.

Of that figure, 150 million dirhams (&dollar;40 million) is part of an agreement between Abu Dhabi and the Emirati Red Crescent and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to the Red Crescent.

The initiative is aimed at reconstructing “damaged homes and rehabilitating hospitals, education and services” hit by Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip, the organization’s president, Sheikh Hamdan Ben Zayed al-Nahyan, is quoted as saying in a statement.

The UAE government already pledged &dollar;52 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the coastal enclave in the early stages of the Israeli military offensive.

Hamas denies ceasefire deal reached

A member of Hamas’s political leadership, Izzat al-Rishq, denies to Arabic media that Hamas has agreed to a long-term humanitarian truce with Israel. He clarifies that “the information to that effect is not correct and Hamas is still committed to its public demands in order to reach a ceasefire.”

Al-Rishq was present earlier on Monday at the meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar.

Meanwhile, the head of the Islamic Jihad also says the terms of a ceasefire haven’t been reached.

Into the third week

Operation Protective Edge is now entering its third week after a day of bitter fighting that raised the IDF death toll to 25. Rockets are still hitting Israel, although in slightly lower numbers. John Kerry and Ban Ki-moon are in the region, amid conflicting reports of progress toward a ceasefire — a ceasefire that it is by no means clear Hamas wants, or that Israel could be satisfied with.

By signing up, you agree to our
terms
You hereby accept The Times of Israel Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, and you agree to receive the latest news & offers from The Times of Israel and its partners or ad sponsors.